SGI puts supercomputer on the desktop

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SGI, the high performance computer company, has launched the ‘Octane III’, which it describes as a "personal supercomputer" that “bridges the gap between desktop and datacentre”.

With the Octane III, SGI said that it can bring high performance computing (HPC) levels of power to the desktop or at least the deskside. It can be configured to offer 10 dual-socket Intel 5500 series processors, which would deliver an impressive 80-cores of processing power in a single chassis. This can be backed up by up to 960GB of processing power.

Alternatively, a rack of 19 dual core Atom processors can be used with a maximum of 76GB of RAM.

The Octane III can also be configured as a graphics workstation using Nvidia Quadro or Tesla graphics and GP-GPU processors, though this will feature ‘only’ two Intel Xeon quad-core 5500 series processors and a mere maximum of 144GB or memory.

SGI said the systems will run a choice of Microsoft HPC Server 2008, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating systems.

“IDC research has shown a growing demand for high-performance deskside supercomputers, and the new Octane III personal supercomputer is designed to directly address the requirements of both the entry level HPC technical server market and the desktop workstation market,” said Earl Joseph, HPC programme vice president at analyst IDC, in a statement.

The systems are available immediately at a starting price of $7,995, though users can expect to pay a lot more for heavily configured systems.

The Octane III is currently on display at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco (IDF). IT PRO is on the ground at IDF so click here for all the latest news from the show.

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